After doing a few PPG flights

I of course had to build an electric one for myself. Petrol is good and all but messing with re-fueling and mixing oil and gas, and just going to the gas station is quite tedious… so here we go.

I got ahold of an old broken paramotor from a friend and started 3D-printing prototype mounts to fit. I wanted a general solution that could easily be fitted to a range of paramotor frames so I based it all on two 25mm aluminium tubes.

3D-printing parts is the perfect way to test fit before doing a more cumbersome and costly aluminium part.

I am basing this entire project around the XL motor from LightningRods as I had a couple of those from another project. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the LightningRods range of motors you can find more info on the LightingRods website:

https://lightning-rods10.mybigcommerce.com/

To control the motor I need to make a paramotor-style throttle grip. Have been thinking about making it wireless but that’ll get to be version 2. First we’ll have to get this one up in the air, så keeping it simple at the moment.

The mill got busy making parts when the test-fitting was done. Man this thing is practical.

Aluminium on aluminium just looks so dang nice. =)

I did need one part that was hard to make on my mill. Even if I started making a larger vise to hold the part on the mill I just tried to order a couple instead. Ordering was not that expensive and the quality is outstanding! If I’m building more of these I’m going to order all parts online instead of wasting hours on the CNC mill at home.

Made a mount for the FarDriver that fit on the tubes and here everything is milled except for the support bearing holder and the proper propeller mount.

Made a propeller mount for a propeller fitting a Vitorazzi Moster 185, since that’s the propellers I’ve got. On the back side a bearing is mounted and the corresponding part that bolts on to the motor gives support to the propeller. That way the internal bearings in the motor won’t see so much axial load. I did mount a regular ball bearing at first but I need to replace that with a preloaded axial bearing to unload the motor bearings better.

Milled a counter plate for the propeller and test fit it. The motor has plenty of torque and when shorting the phases there’s plenty of resistance in the propeller.

Here you can see the way the propeller support bearing and the propeller is mounted. I started out with quite a slim bearing but had to replace that with a proper ball bearing that could take more load. It’s supposed to be able to take 100kg axially but I don’t really trust those numbers.

In order for the new bearing to fit I had to do some modifications on the mill.

Everything feels sturdy enough and should give proper support for the forces applied when flying.

Using a battery from one of my bike builds to test this thing out. 20s10p, 30Ah good for 300A+. Total weight of the frame with controller and motor is around 12-14kg. The battery pack weighs as much and I’m guessing with the harness we’re getting closer to 30kg with one battery. I’ve got one more to connect in paralell but we’ll start off with one for testing.

Wiring in the FarDriver couldn’t be simpler.

Next thing I’m doing tonight is cleaning up the wiring harness. There are loads of leads that I won’t need using the controller for flying.

Just a nice picture from my first flight ever last summer. Got quite hooked on flying after that.

The first test run of the XL-ePPG went great. Got around 2900RPM on a prop that’s good for 3000.. Nothing got warm and the motor revs out all the way. I probably could tweak the controller to use field weakening to get more speed but we’ll keep it like this for the time being. The battery sat at 6% charge when I started testing too, so the BMS limited the output.. it’ll be interesting to see what this can do under a glider..

Stay tuned for updates..

I’m sorry for the lack of updates this summer. We’ve been doing the final touches on the house project and I’ve been trying to get as many hours in the sky as possible for relaxation.

Autumn is here so there’ll be time for more indoors-focused projects now and the ePPG project will be ready for testing shortly. The GasGas conversion has been at a standstill but I’m working up the energy to finish that one too. 🙂

So, while adjusting the carburetor on my paramotor due to the heat-wave we’re experiencing I got a super loud noise and instantly killed the motor. When carefully pulling the pull starter I found that the sprocket of the electric starter didn’t retract all the way and stayed partially in contact with the starter gear on the motor which.. isn’t great.

I pulled the electric starter motor out to have a look and it didn’t look right..

When connecting 12V to the inputs the sprocket was thrown out but instantly retracted half way. When disconnecting the power it didn’t fully retract so something made it stick.

The starter motor is fairly simple to disassemble:

Four screws holding the motor casing and gearbox together and

the brass nut connecting the positive pole to the motor. After removing those the gearbox slides apart easilly.

The problem when the sprocket doesn’t retract is in the bendix gear that’s responsible for keeping the sprocket in contact with the starter gear as long as the electric starter is engaged. Had a look at the bendix gear and there was a wierdly shaped rentention spring partly protruding and some loose parts inside.

To disassemble the bendix gear you need to remove a retaining clip that can be accessed by compressing the internal spring by pushing the rightmost cup downwards.

After removing the retaining clip the entire spring compartment slides off the shaft.

With the spring compartment out of the way the sprocket housing with the weights should rotate right off. Mine didn’t due to minor damages on the shaft so I had to convince it using a puller.

Taking it all apart I saw that the weights that’s supposed to lock the sprocket in the extended position had come loose and one was missing. It must have shattered to be able to escape the housing and in doing so doing some damage to the other components like the retaining spring and bottom containing plate.

At this moment I knew I needed a new starter or at least a new bendix gear. The gear was 66 pounds and 85 pounds shipping at the cheapest place I found it, and the starter is much more expensive than that. Since I’m allergic to shipping costs being higher than the price of the actual product I started looking at options.

First I thought I’d just make a copy of the weights in CAD and make one on the CNC mill, but that’s a lot of work as it is quite a complex part.. Then I started looking online for bendix gears.

It seems the Moster185 starter is similar to the starter used in many KTM bikes and loads of moped motors. I found a place in Sweden selling bendix gears for mopeds that looked similar to the Moster gear and at $19 with shipping I gave it a try.

The moped bendix gear is mostly identical to the Moster one except it’s got a different reduction gear at the leftmost end – and rotates the wrong way. It does however contain all the parts I was missing..

I put the replacement parts into the Moster gear, re-assembled the starter, installed it on the paramotor and it works like new!

I’m certain there are moped bendix gears with the right reduction that goes the right way and thus are identical with the moster gear but I did just order the first and cheapest one I found.

Note: I did try running the starter with 2 and none of the weights installed but it then disengages the gear on the motor as soon as the motor hits TDC, so all three weights are needed for the starter to work properly.

So, since I’ve picked up the hobby of paramotoring of course I’ve got to build one of my own. And since I’m kind of into electric I’ll be designing an all electric paramotor, mostly from stuff I’ve got at home.

The idea is as follows:
* A 72v setup using the same batteries and chargers as my bikes initially
* Using an LR XL motor, producing approx 17kW peak that I didn’t use for my latest bike
* Got a FarDriver 72680 controller as it was dirt cheap and should suffice
* 130cm 2-blade propeller that fits my Moster185 so I can use the same on both
* Some old scrap frame or whatever I can conjure for a reasonable price until I make one

To keep things simple and lightweight the first version will use the motor extrusion as the load carrying body of the package. There are extra bearings in the yellowish part helping to take the load from the propeller. The reason for the tiny propeller mount is that I’m using 20×60 aluminium stock that I’ve got at home for prototyping. When I see that it works I’ll make a more proper one.

The RPM of the motor should be close to what the propeller needs and we can adjust using field weakening on the controller. If the motor spins to fast I’ll make a belt reduction but first we’ll try out the simplest version.

I’ve paired the motor with the controller and it seems fine. Haven’t dared to hook up the propeller to it before I’ve got a proper mount for it though as that would be a disaster waiting to happen.

To control the motor I’m making a hall sensor throttle that’ll be 3D-printed all the way. I’ve tried to keep it simple and switchable so the same throttle can be used for both right- and left-hand control. I’ll print a prototype and there will probably be a bunch of changes for this before it’s done too..

Just for the fun of it I designed and printed a chasecam too. This one is of similar size and weight as commercial ones and is kept together with locking tabs in the base and TPU clips round the perimeter. It’s very flexible and bounces around when you throw it. I’ve got some paracord on order to try it out..

More to come on this subject, stay tuned…

The EC conversion has grinded to a bit of a halt. This is mostly due to the house renovation project but a few weeks ago I picked up a new hobby:

I’ve been wanting to get back up in the skies for awhile and paramotoring is just a cozy way of doing so totally idependent of anyone else.

Of course there’s going to be an electric paramotor build coming but I’m going to get the EC conversion done first. One major project at a time..